UNDERGROUND ZERO

Psychedelic/Space Rock • United Kingdom

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Underground Zero biography
UK outfit UNDERGROUND ZERO can trace it's history back to 1979. At that time Andrew Rix (bass, vocals), Adrian Rix (keyboards), Judi Griggs (vocals), Brian Savage (drums) and Karl Dawson (guitars) were members of cover band Roko, an active entity in the club and pub circuit in the Norfolk area of England.

In 1981 the first evolvement towards becoming an original act took place. The band started performing their own material, and the first line-up change occured when Savage left to be replaced by Mike Melnyk (drums). Paul Holden (guitars) joined the band at that point in time too, and they decided to change their name to Ground Zer0.

In 1982 the band hit the studio for the first time. In the words of the band's historian:

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In 1982 a man approached Adrian in a pub in Norwich and offered to make us all Super-Stars! We said, OK. So he took us to a studio in Ipswich, (arriving himself in a red bimbo-driven Porsche (the Porsche not the bimbo) - very impressive), recorded four of our songs (in what he thought was the way it should be done), took some posy photos and then disappeared, leaving us with a box full of cassettes and promo photos.
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It turned out that the tapes became rather popular at gigs, and even if the band weren't really satisifed with the end result they hadn't spent any of their own money making the tape. Thus it was a pretty good investment after all.

Sometime later a promoter wanted to know if they were interested in a 10-date tour of France. The band accepted, but for some reason or another never heard from him again. Sometime after that they were asked to open for Marillion though, which was a great experience for the band.

In 1983 they felt it was time to hit the studio again, to record a demo with a sound presenting them in a better way than the previous years tape. Four tracks were recorded, and although the end result weren't exactly up to the standards the band wanted to achieve it did represent their stylistic expression in a better manner. They sent out the demo to labels and radio stations, got a bit of airplay and several reviews, some positve and a few more on the harsh side. But one of the guys who fancied it was BBC's Tommy Vance, which brought quite a lot of attention to Ground Zero.

A direct result of this was that the band started to connect with the crowd of people connected with UK's leading space rock outfit Hawkwind, with Nik Turn...read more